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Few tests done at toxic sites after Sandy

Residents worry hazardous materials were stirred up by storm’s flooding

Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoJulio Cortez | Associated PressA recreational area in Laurence Harbor, N.J., is fenced off in an area where high levels of lead were recorded after superstorm Sandy.

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OLD BRIDGE, N.J. — For more than a month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has said that superstorm Sandy didn’t cause significant problems at any of the 247 Superfund toxic-waste sites it monitors in New York and New Jersey.

But in many cases, no actual tests of soil or water have been conducted, just visual inspections.

The EPA conducted a handful of tests right after the storm but couldn’t provide details of any recent testing when asked last week. New Jersey officials point out that federally designated Superfund sites are the EPA’s responsibility.

The EPA said last month that none of the Superfund sites it monitors in New York or New Jersey suffered significant damage and it has done follow-up sampling at the Gowanus Canal site in Brooklyn, the Newtown Creek site on the border of Queens and Brooklyn, and the Raritan Bay slag site, all of which flooded during the storm.

But last week, EPA spokeswoman Stacy Kika didn’t respond when asked whether any soil or water tests have been done at the 243 other Superfund sites. The agency hasn’t said how many of the sites flooded.

“Currently, we do not believe that any sites were impacted in ways that would pose a threat to nearby communities,” the EPA said in a statement.

Politicians have been asking similar questions. On Nov. 29, U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., wrote to the EPA to ask for “an additional assessment” of Sandy’s impact on Superfund sites in the state.

Elevated levels of lead, antimony, arsenic and copper have been found at the Raritan Bay site, a Superfund site since 2009. Blast furnaces dumped lead at the site in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and lead slag was used to construct a seawall and jetty there.

The EPA took four samples from the site after superstorm Sandy: two from a fenced-off beach area and two from a nearby public playground. One of the beach samples tested above the recreational limit for lead. In early November, the EPA said it was taking additional samples “to get a more detailed picture of how the material might have shifted” and will “take appropriate steps to prevent public exposure” at the site, according to a bulletin posted on its website. But six weeks later, the agency couldn’t provide details of what has been found.

The lack of testing has left some residents with lingering worries.

“I think it brought a lot of crud in from what’s out there,” said Elise Pelletier, whose small bungalow sits on a hill overlooking the Raritan Bay site. “You don’t know what came in from the water.”

Pat Churchill, who was walking her dog in the park along the water, said she’s still worried.

“There are unanswered questions. You can’t tell me this is all contained. It has to move around,” Churchill said.